2010年2月24日 星期三

The missing 500 - Part 1

(A statue of 鄭成功Cheng Chen-Gong - known to the West as Koxinga國姓爺, in 皓月園, 鼓浪嶼Gulangyu, Xiamen City)

On the 18th day of the 8th month (lunar calendar) in 1683, the Ming-Cheng Dynasty ceased to exist. This was the statement from the 14-year-old ruler of Taiwan, Koxinga's 2nd grandson 鄭克塽Cheng Ke-shuang, to turncoat 施琅Shi-lang who had just defeated Cheng's Navy in Peng-hu and was ready to attack Taiwan proper. It was authored by 鄭德瀟Cheng De-Shiaw on behalf of the boy-king:

Essentially, it states: "... I am young and ignorant and should have capitulated sooner in the presence of the immense power of Your Majesty [the Qing emperor]... I hereby renounce my titles and rights and together with my subordinates surrender to you. Attached please find the seals of mine and those of my trusted advisers. Have mercy on us and the household of the Royal Ming Court ..."

In it, Cheng requested that he and his family be sent back to Hokkien [instead of Beijing] because a southerner could not adapt to life in northern China and that he be granted residences and lands and a stipend to live on in reasonable comfort.

The Qing Court naturally would not have any of these. Instead, Cheng was held hostage in Beijing, given an empty title of 漢軍公(the Duke of Han Army - sarcastically of course) as part of the 正黃旗Formal Yellow-flag Army [one of the eight flag-armies of Qing]. And his army disbanded totally.

It has been only 327 years since the surrender; the aftermath while little known was actually very well-recorded. The systematic destruction of anything Cheng by the Qing Court was nothing short of spectacular. We will now look at what had happened to the 東寧王朝Tung-Ning Dynasty survivors. One of the examples is the 藤牌兵 or the Rattan-shield Infantrymen who were recruited from 龍溪縣Long-shi Prefecture of 漳州府ChangChowFu in Hokkien - the same birthplace of the ancestors of many Danshui-ren.